Blood Biomarkers for Diagnosis & Differential Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease in Real-World Clinical Populations: A Systematic Review
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Background
Gold standard diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) relies on invasive, expensive, and non-scalable methods (cerebrospinal fluid lumbar puncture and Amyloid-positron emission tomography). Blood biomarkers (BBMs) present a scalable, accessible, and resource-efficient diagnostic alternative.
Objective
To investigate the diagnostic and differential diagnostic performance of three clinically relevant plasma biomarkers: phosphorylated tau-217 (pTau217), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and neurofilament light chain (NFL) for biologically confirmed AD patients in real-world, clinical settings.
Methods
A systematic search was conducted across 5 databases for peer-reviewed studies between January 2019-January 2025. A narrative synthesis was conducted for eligible studies.
Results
13 studies (n=4686 participants) were included. All studies were cross-sectional, and investigated populations recruited from memory clinics, neurology departments, or clinical cohorts. Diagnostic performance of pTau217 was consistently high (AUC > 0.90 across all comparisons). GFAP and NFL showed moderate and variable accuracy (AUCs ranging from <0.75 to >0.90). No studies assessed combinations of all 3 biomarkers. Methodological and assay heterogeneity was common.
Conclusion
Plasma pTau217 demonstrated strong diagnostic accuracy and promise for diagnosis of AD. GFAP and NFL displayed inconsistent results, but could provide complementary information, particularly for differential diagnosis. Further standardized studies in underrepresented populations are required to validate and enable BBM implementation in clinical settings.
